Founder of DEF CON and Black Hat Jeff Moss has been appointed vice-president and chief security officer of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
While DEF CON is the world’s largest hacker conference, Black hat is a global technical security conference.
Moss, 36, is a self-proclaimed hacker for over 20 years and an adviser to the US Department of Homeland Security. Also known as The Dark Tangent in the Web world, he served as a Director at the Secure Computing Corporation, where he established the professional services department in Asia, Australia and the US. He Ernst & Young, LLP as a security expert.
ICANN, formed in 1998, is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers.
The agency in charge of the world’s Internet addresses says that its does not control content, cannot stop spam and it does not deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.
ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom said Moss has the insider’s knowledge to understand security threats facing Internet users.
Beckstrom said, "I can think of no one with a greater understanding of the security threats facing Internet users and how best to defend against them than Jeff Moss."
"He has the in-depth insider’s knowledge that can only come from fighting in the trenches of the on-going war against cyber threats."
Moss is expected to begin work Friday at the Washington, DC offices of ICANN. He said that he is looking forward to bringing his skill sets to ICANN.
Moss said, "Its [ICANN’s] role in coordinating the global Internet addressing system means that it is positioned to become the leader in identifying and dealing with online threats to the Domain Name System that could affect two billion global Internet users."
ICANN board of directors vice-chair Steve Crocker said, "In the area of network security, Jeff Moss knows the problems, knows the people and brings remarkable energy."
Member of the British House of Lords and chairman of the Information Society Alliance Merlin Hay said, "The global threats to the Internet’s Domain Name System are in essence the digital cold war of the new millennium."
"To win this war we need someone like Jeff Moss who understands the hacker’s mindset and has the international experience to grasp that today’s online attacks can come from just about anywhere on the planet."
